U.S. Pat. No. 6,095,293 discloses a brake for an airplane wheel, the brake comprising a stack of disks having a central axis and a braking torque-takeup structure carrying modular electromechanical actuators that can be removed individually and that extending facing the stack of disks in order to apply pressure to the stack of disks in controlled manner.
The actuators are designed to be removed from the side of the torque-takeup structure that is remote from the stack of disks.
Nevertheless, in certain circumstances, it can happen that the space between the torque-takeup structure and the landing gear is too small to enable an actuator to be removed in that direction. In this respect, reference can be made to FIG. 1 of the above-cited document which shows an actuator fitted to an airplane brake, and disposed, when the brake is mounted on airplane landing gear, directly facing the structure of the landing gear so that it cannot be removed.
It is then necessary to remove the wheel and then the brake in order to be able to remove an actuator disposed in such a manner, thereby making in situ maintenance of such a brake very awkward for the company using such an airplane. Such a disposition makes it necessary to put the airplane on a jack, to remove the wheel, and then the stack of disks, before finally being able to remove the torque-takeup structure in order to access the actuator concerned. That amount of manipulation rules out any in situ maintenance limited merely to replacing the actuator. If a company is going to have to disassemble the entire brake-and-wheel assembly, then it will prefer replacing said assembly with another assembly, and taking the removed assembly into a workshop for maintenance.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,730 discloses a brake-and-wheel assembly including actuators carried by a support that is secured to the landing gear.
Although such actuators are configured so as to enable them to be removed from the support without disturbing the brake assembly made up of the stack of disks and the torsion tube, that is nevertheless not sufficient to enable the actuator to be removed from the airplane without removing the wheel. FIG. 2 of that document also shows the situation in which the actuators are not directly removable because they come into abutment against the rim of the wheel. It is therefore necessary to put the airplane on a jack and remove the wheel, which means that there is no advantage in being able to remove the actuators individually.